Graphics, Figures & Tables ⇒ Trouble with pdfTeX

[luis]

Hello everyone,

I've been using Latex for several years now. I started with MikTex and WinTex on WinXP and got really satisfied, being able to do all the things I ever needed to.

Last Spring I was finally able to kiss Windows goodbye and changed to Ubuntu. I'm using pdfTeX (which I think comes by default with Ubuntu) and Texmaker. The latter leaves a lot to be desired for, when compared to WinTex or TexnicCenter, but soon I managed to do pretty much all I need.

There has always been a problem with figures though, without any reason I can point, pdfTex randomly isolates images in pages. While some are correctly inserted between the text, for others pdfTex reserves a complete page, presenting it centered in the page with the remainder left in blank.

Where's the code I use to insert a figure:

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Code, edit and compile here:

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\begin{figure}[htp]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.5]{figure.jpg} 
\caption{Blah blah blah}
\label{figure}
\end{figure}
 
 
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Run LaTeX here

So far this hadn't been much of a problem, but now I'm writing an article that has a page limit and pdfTex is simply blowing it up. I tried to round this problem using floating figures with the floatflt package. It positions the figure in the correct place, but the main text is rendered over it. I find it very strange for pdfTex not to handle floating figures.

I have another issue with figures: the captions' width is different from the main text. Is this a problem with margin definitions or seomthing else? The only width commands I'm using are these:

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Code, edit and compile here:

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\oddsidemargin 0.3in
\evensidemargin 0.1in
\textwidth 6.0in
 
 
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Run LaTeX here

Here's what I get when I run latex -version:

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pdfTeX using libpoppler 3.141592-1.40.3-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.6)
kpathsea version 3.5.6
Copyright 2007 Peter Breitenlohner (eTeX)/Han The Thanh (pdfTeX).
Kpathsea is copyright 2007 Karl Berry and Olaf Weber.
There is NO warranty.  Redistribution of this software is
covered by the terms of both the pdfTeX using libpoppler copyright and
the Lesser GNU General Public License.
For more information about these matters, see the file
named COPYING and the pdfTeX using libpoppler source.
Primary author of pdfTeX using libpoppler: Peter Breitenlohner (eTeX)/Han The Thanh (pdfTeX).
Kpathsea written by Karl Berry, Olaf Weber, and others.
Compiled with libpng 1.2.37; using libpng 1.2.37
Compiled with zlib 1.2.3.3; using zlib 1.2.3.3
Compiled with libpoppler version 0.12.0
 
 
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Any hints? Thank you.

[frabjous]

I have to confess I'm a bit confused by a number of things in your post.

No version of (pdf)TeX comes with Ubuntu (at least not 9.04 or 9.10), but likely when you installed TeXmaker, the package dependencies installed TeXlive 2007, which is the latest version in the Ubuntu repositories. They're working on packaging TeXlive 2009, and hopefully it'll be ready soon, but in the meantime, you could manually install TeXlive 2009 using the install script here:

http://www.tug.org/texlive/acquire-netinstall.html

If you don't like TeXmaker for being not feature rich enough, by the way, you could try Kile, or TeXmakerX or AucTeX. (Or go a different way and try TeXworks or Gummi or even the gedit LaTeX plugin.) Kile is much more feature rich than even TeXnicCenter.

You are clearly not compiling your code with pdftex -- the code snippet you used showed latex code, so at the very least you are using pdflatex. True, this is built on pdftex, but why exactly are you blaming pdftex for the problem? How do you know the problem isn't with your graphical package (graphicx?), or with latex, or the image files themselves? You were probably using pdflatex on Windows too.

Yet, you gave the version number for latex -version rather than pdflatex -version. Not sure why you thought that relevant, since you are almost certainly not calling the former if you're including .jpg files.

In any case, if the problem persists after upgrading to TeXlive 2009, post a minimal working example actually showing the problem, along with the .jpg image. (A dummy image is fine if the problem shows with it too.)

[luis]

Hello frabjous,

I'm not awere of having any other compiler installed beyond pdfTex. This is the command Texmaker is using:

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latex -interaction=nonstopmode %.tex
 
 
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As you can see from the initial post, this is calling pdfTex. Is there a way I can check if texLive is installed?

Meanwhile I'll work on that dummy. Thanks.

[luis]

So here's the dummy.

Edit by localghost: Attachments are uploaded to the forum server.

[localghost]

Though in every case pdfTeX processes the source, you have to call pdflatex for direct PDF output. The two compilers latex and pdflatex pass different control options to this engine. Your sample document works fine for me when I use pdflatex as compiler. TeXmaker should offer similar options to choose between latex (DVI output, only EPS graphics files accepted) or pdflatex (PDF output, graphics files in JPG, PNG or PDF accepted).


Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten¹

[luis]

Hi localghost, tanks for the reply.

I tried to run the commands directly at the command line to see if anything changed. Using the pdflatex command I get exactly the same result as that posted above. Running latex the picture doesn't show up.

[localghost]

As I already explained in my last reply, latex doesn't accept external graphics files in JPG format. Decide which compiler engine to use in dependence on the desired format of the final output. If necessary you have to convert image files.

[frabjous]

I'm a bit confused by what the problem is.

If you don't want this image to be on its own page, remove the "p" placement option from the figure placement (which means "on a separate page of floats").

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Code, edit and compile here:

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\begin{figure}[ht]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.7]{Interpolation.jpg} 
\caption{Caption caption caption caption caption caption caption caption caption caption caption caption caption caption.}
\label{Interpolation}
\end{figure}
 
 
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Run LaTeX here

Here's some help on float placement.

[luis]

Decide which compiler engine to use in dependence on the desired format of the final output.

Ok, so I decide to go with pdflatex. How do I avoid the isolation of figures in a single page, just as the dummy example shows?

Thank you.

[localghost]

Just do as frabjous already suggested.

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\begin{figure}[!ht]
  % figure contents
\end{figure}
 
 
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Run LaTeX here